


The Darkest of Days

by b99xperaltiago



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cross-Posted on Wattpad, Did I Mention Angst?, F/M, Heavy Angst, I don't know what else to tag, Sorry Not Sorry, What Have I Done, have you guys seen the new palm springs movie trailer yet? It looks amazing!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:53:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 19,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24759622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/b99xperaltiago/pseuds/b99xperaltiago
Summary: Amy is still on maternity leave and is itching to get back to work. Jake, on the other hand, is already back and working an uncrackable case with Charles.One night, Jake stays at the precinct late without realizing after promising to be home early. In a panicked hurry, he runs out of the precinct to get home as fast as he can, however before he can get in his car, he hears gunshots from outside the garage and goes to look. There he finds a man with a gun, one person being held with the barrel pointed at them and the other with a GSW in their leg. He tries to disarm the shooter himself but catches bullets in the process, leaving him critical.- Cross-posted on Wattpad under the same name :) -
Relationships: Charles Boyle & Amy Santiago, Charles Boyle & Jake Peralta, Jake Peralta/Amy Santiago, Ray Holt & Amy Santiago, Rosa Diaz & Amy Santiago, Terry Jeffords & Amy Santiago
Comments: 61
Kudos: 128





	1. part one

**Author's Note:**

> This was the one I was talking about at the end of amber alert. 
> 
> I was requested this one over Wattpad so this wasn't my fault! I mean... I did agree to write it and then I proceeded to make myself cry whilst writing this so yeah, maybe this was my fault. 
> 
> ALSO! (sorry for the all caps but I need your attention!) You know where I'm going with this one so why don't you say it along with me: this story is complete and will be updated on a regular basis. 
> 
> Wow, I'm on a roll with these stories being regularly updated *blinking heavily as I think about the fact I've got two WIPs that are still to be updated after quite a while... I'm working on it I swear but I've got crippling writer's block on both of them!*
> 
> I swear to god though, this is my last one of Jake getting shot or close to being shot for a while, I might stick to fluff for a while. 
> 
> haha, me?? stick to fluff??? I give myself two days before i'm off in my dark corner writing depressing shit because like they say you are what you eat... even though I don't eat this. never mind.
> 
> Anyway, that was enough of your day wasted with my rambling! I hope you enjoy!

Only when it reaches seven does Amy begin to get a little worried about her husband's whereabouts.

He had been working on a case with Charles, and he had started to get a little too involved with it. She knows it wasn't any of his control, there were some cases where he would go nuts unable to solve it, there would be some he would crack straight away. This was one that was slap-bang in the middle of that scale - he was starting to get a little crazy because he couldn't solve it but yet he was convinced he was almost there.

It had been two weeks and he just couldn't seem to crack it though.

Amy was still on maternity leave, and while she was itching to get back to work, she was only really able to think about it once Mac was asleep. Mac was two and a half months old now, he seemed to be changing more and more every day; three days ago he managed to hold his head up on his own for a brief moment and last night he gave a very weak smile to Jake when he returned home.

She knows that he might have been late home today, the days leading up to the holidays had made it so the roads were a little more packed than normal, taking the usual time of ten minutes to get home up to twenty, twenty-five give or take, but he said he was leaving the precinct at six so the fact it was an hour later makes her a little anxious.

She also knows it shouldn't make her worry, Jake could take care of himself and she had every trust in him not to get himself stuck in a stupid situation, but it does.

There is the possibility that he was still caught up with the case, even the chance that Jake didn't even know what the time was and was still sat at his desk. That had happened more times than he was willing to admit.

Mac begins getting restless, giving Amy the inclination on the fact that the two-month-old was starting to get tired, and it sparks her worry even further. She tries her hardest to keep the boy entertained, knowing how much Jake loves to say goodnight to him before Amy puts him down for the first time in the night, but he isn't having it.

She gives in and decides it's best for Mac if she puts him to bed now rather than try to keep him up long enough for Jake to come home, that would only make the infant more overtired than he already was - courtesy of the fact he had decided to miss a nap earlier because the hanging animals from the playmat on top of him were much more interesting than falling asleep. She takes him back through to the nursery, changing him into a clean diaper and onesie before sitting down on the chair in the corner of the room. As she feeds him, she pulls her phone out from her hoodie (well, Jake's hoodie) and decides to call him instead, just to calm her nerves down a bit.

The ringing on the other side of the line keeps going, at some point it becomes a little obnoxious, but it doesn't stop either way. It seems to go on for minutes and when Jake's voice finally comes through the speaker it's in the form of his voicemail, Amy sighs deeply, deciding to leave one this time and not just hang up like she normally does.

She speaks in a whisper, Mac was already starting to fall asleep in her arm, but loud enough for the microphone to pick her voice up nonetheless. "Hey, babe, I was just calling to see if you are okay, you said you would be home an hour ago, but I guess the case is really interesting. I had to put Mac down too, he was getting overtired because the world was way more fun than nap time earlier," There's a pause in her voice as she takes another look down at Mac, who seemed to be fast asleep because he had finished eating, "Anyway, I've got to transfer this little guy, just call me back when you get this. I love you." She says, already taking the phone from her ear and hanging up the call.

Amy puts her phone back in her pocket (Jake's pocket) and remains sat in the chair for a moment, pulling her shirt back up over her shoulder as quietly and slowly as she can as not to wake him. Once she's done that, she begins getting to her feet before carrying the infant carefully back through to hers and Jake's bedroom.

(She still wasn't a hundred percent happy with letting Mac sleep in his room when she wasn't awake, so he still was sleeping in with them at night and would sleep in his crib during the day for naps)

He transfers into the bassinet almost perfectly, there is a moment where she's convinced by his scrunched up and very unhappy face that he was going to wake up again but soon after the dip in Mac's eyebrows disappears and his face goes back to normal. She waits and watches him in the bassinet for a moment, just to double-check that he is staying asleep, and then she goes back out to the living room again.

On a normal day she would stay inside the bedroom, get ready for bed and do her crossword but she had forgotten to pick one up earlier that day because Mac had taken up her attention.

She sits on the couch and pulls her phone back out of the pocket she had only just placed inside. Lighting up the screen using the home button she feels her hopes go up with the thought of seeing a message back from Jake, however they get crushed back down as she sees the blank home screen in front of her eyes.

Placing her phone down on the coffee table, she picks up the TV remote to play in the background as just noise before she goes into the kitchen and grabs a drink from the fridge. She stands in there for a minute, her gaze falling on to the TV for it to be rambling on about something she didn't pay attention to. Just then she decides to put on an episode of Jeopardy to pass the time, she had a couple of episodes to catch up on anyway.

Turning the channel over into the previous recordings, she lets her gaze fall down to her phone one last time. Nothing.

She watches one episode, being careful not to shout the answers out too loud to risk waking Mac up, and one episode becomes two, then three, and then five. When that one finishes, she looks back down to her phone to see a missed call from an unknown number just moments before. She's sure she's never moved so quick before as she jumps toward the phone, calling back the person as fast as she can. A voice comes up and says there was an error with dialing the number, that it wasn't available.

She hangs up and stares at the screen, waiting for a call again. If it was Jake he would try again in a minute or two.

Time seems to slow as she watches the phone in her hand intently. Seconds go by feeling like hours and she's mentally praying that it would speed up, go back to normal, and this person _will phone back._

A minute goes by, only a minute as the clock on her phone tells her, before she gets a message through, announcing a voicemail in her inbox. She analyses the number for a moment, trying to think if she recognizes it from anywhere, but nothing drops, the only time she can remember it from was from a minute ago when she saw the missed call notification. She lifts her phone up to her ear as she listens to the message left by the same unknown caller.

It starts off slow, the woman on the other end addressing her very formally with an emotionless sounding voice.

_"Hello, Mrs Peralta? We've got you listed here as the emergency contact for Jake Peralta. I'm calling to inform you that there's been an incident. Your husband was shot."_


	2. part two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back at it with another chapter. Thank you for the response I got in the last chapter, it really did make my day today waking up to read your opinions, please keep them coming as the story progresses!

_Jake woke up to the sound of Mac crying in the bassinet for attention on Amy's side of the bed. He jumps out from under the comforter quickly and goes around the foot of the bed, just managing to reach in and pick the infant up into his arms before Amy does._

_She gives him a look, resting her back against the metal headboard, watching him as he rocks Mac to calm him down. "I was just about to get him."_

_He shrugs, looking down at his son as the cries go quiet. "Oh well, he's stopped now."_

_"He'll still be hungry, Jake, he last ate at three." Amy says, looking over to the clock on Jake's bedside table._ **_6:56 am._ **

_Jake still bops up and down, now doing it as it seems to be entertaining Mac before handing him over to Amy so she could feed him. "I've got to get ready for work anyway." He sighs, playing around with Mac's hand before reluctantly letting go and moving over to the closet._

_Amy gets Mac latched on before she looks back up to her husband with furrowed eyebrows. "How is the case going?" She asks._

_There's a quiet pause as Jake grabs a shirt from the rack, turning on his heels and leaning up against the dresser. He shakes his head from side to side. "I'm not really sure anymore. The only witness was found DOA in Borough Park yesterday and we hadn't gotten enough information from them because they were too shaken up to talk before. All we know about the suspect is they're about my height, which_ **_really_ ** _narrows it down."_

_"I'm sure something will turn, you've just got to make sure you don't get burned out by this case, it's not healthy for you." Amy sighs, gazing down at Mac happily eating in her arms._

_Jake lets out a chuckle, nodding and turning back around to go through the drawers of the dresser. "Yes, I know. I've been told several times by you and Holt," he replies, pulling out a pair of pants and looking back over his shoulder, "I promise not to burn myself out, to even prove it, I will be back at six tonight."_

_Amy sends him a disapproving look from the bed. "You've said that before and you always end up home later."_

_He approaches the bed and holds out his hand, extending his little finger. "I pinky promise to be home at six, no later than seven."_

_She hesitates for a minute before letting out a single laugh, bringing her finger to meet his. "I'm holding you to that, so is Mac."_

_Jake leans down. "Using the baby against me? That's low, Santiago, real low."_

_"I know." Amy replies, a smug smirk on her face before she meets Jake's lips halfway._

_The two of them remain together for a brief moment before Jake pulls away quickly, moving back over to the dresser and collecting the clothes he had left there before going through to the bathroom to have a shower._

_They share another kiss later that morning just before Jake leaves the door. By then Mac is much more alert and is sat on his mother's lap, looking around the room with wonder. Jake then puts his lips to the top of his son's head, receiving a small smile in return from the infant before he goes over to the door._

_Amy speaks up before he can leave, just as he's opening the door. "Remember, home at six."_

_Jake nods, grinning over to her from the opposite side of the apartment. "I won't forget. I'll see you at six, I'll see you both at six."_

_(later that night)_

_As Jake stifles back a yawn, he leans back in his chair and sighs, looking to Charles in defeat. "I'm not gonna lie, I really don't think this case is gonna get cracked."_

_Charles gazes over his shoulder to check the time on the clock above the elevator. He stands from the chair beside Jake's desk, and goes over to his own to collect his coat from the back of the cold, empty seat. "It's getting late too, just call it a quits tonight, look over it again with fresh eyes in the morning."_

_The younger detective nods, standing up from his own desk chair and following his friend's lead by grabbing his coat. "What time is it?" He questions, furrowing his eyebrows in Charles's direction._

_With another subtle glance to the clock above the elevator, Charles replies. "Just gone nine."_

_Jake's eyes widen as he starts rushing toward the elevator. "Oh, shit!"_

_"What? What is it?" Charles questions, concern filling his voice as he watches his friend slam his hand against the call button on the wall._

_He looks over his shoulder, waiting for the steel doors to ding open. "I pinky promised Amy I would be home at six. I didn't even notice the time."_

_Charles speaks up plainly from his desk from packing up the rest of his things. "That means she has to break your pinky then."_

_Jake turns around on his heels completely and gives his friend a very confused look. "What?"_

_The older detective looks at him as if the answer was obvious. "When you break a pinky promise, the person you made the promise with gets to break your little finger as a punishment for breaking it."_

_Just then the doors ding open and Jake steps inside, choosing not to question it. He hits the button for the garage, knowing Charles will take a few more minutes to gather up the rest of his things. Jake says goodbye to his friend as the doors shut in front of him and when he reaches the bottom floor, Jake quickly rushes out of the elevator and goes toward his car._

_That's when he looks to his phone, on his way to send a text to Amy before getting distracted by the notification sat on his home screen, informing him that he had a voicemail from his wife from two hours ago._

_He listens quickly to the message, choosing to call her back after rather than text._ "Hey, babe, I was just calling to see if you are okay, you said you would be home an hour ago, but I guess the case is really interesting. I had to put Mac down too, he was getting overtired because the world was way more fun than nap time earlier," _There's a pause before she speaks again,_ "Anyway, I've got to transfer this little guy, just call me back when you get this. I love you."

_Jake smiles at her last words in the message, referring to their son. He feels the guilt fill in his chest however for missing out saying goodnight to Mac and for breaking his promise with Amy, probably the latter more though._

_Just as he's dialing her number he gets distracted by the sounds of screaming coming from just outside the garage before gunshots can be heard. He turns around quickly and ditches his bag by the side of his car, throwing his phone in his pocket and running out to where he heard the noise._

_The streets were basically empty, which was very strange for Brooklyn the days leading up to Christmas, it was usually swarming - but he gathers the silent pathways had something to do with the gunshots he had just heard. It was pitch dark out, it had been for hours, and the streetlamps were the only thing managing to light the path as it seemed all the stores around there were closed._

_He runs around the corner to find one person on the floor, gunned down with a bullet wound in their leg, one person being held with the gun pointed directly at them, as well as the shooter. Jake proceeds cautiously, pulling the gun from his holster out slowly and aiming it up toward the shooter._

_"Put it down slowly, get on the floor and put your hands where I can see them, NYPD." Jake says, stepping forward, keeping his own gun raised._

_The shooter moves his gun and points it in Jake's direction, using his hand to push the other person away, screaming at them to leave._

_Jake shakes his head. "That is not a good idea, put your gun down and we won't have a problem." He says sternly, coming to a stop a few feet from the shooter._

_The barrel moves further forward, Jake can see the man's finger fall on the trigger. Before Jake can take a shot himself, before he can move his finger to pull the trigger against the shooter, two gunshots echo out from the other man's gun, the two metallic bullets dropping the detective to the floor with shots straight into his stomach and chest._

_As he collapses, he can hear the dropping of the gun from the shooter against the concrete floor before the sounds of someone running off can be heard fading away._

_His breathing becomes rough and uneven as he brings one of his hands to rest against his stomach, trying to hold pressure there as he feels himself getting more and more out-of-it. As he drops the gun from his other hand, he feels it go so limp he's unable to rest it against the other bullet wound in his chest, he feels his entire body go still as he loses his not-at-all-tight-enough grip against his stomach._

_His eyes fall shut briefly before being ripped half-open again by Charles's voice screaming behind him, running up to him quickly. "Jake!" He yells, kneeling down beside his friend and putting the pressure there himself._

_Charles hits the back of one of his hands quickly against the side of Jake's face as he begins closing his eyes again. The older detective pulls out the radio he had grabbed quickly when he had heard the first shots minutes before. "10-10 shots fired, send two ambos to my location, a civilian with a gunshot wound to the leg and officer down who needs immediate medical assistance! Took two bullets to the chest and abdomen."_

_As the muffled sound of the person on the other end of the radio announces the fact that two ambulances were on route as well as the echoed noise beside Jake's ear of the radio being placed forcefully on the floor, Charles speaks up too, placing his hands back to hold pressure on both GSWs._

_"It's okay, Jake-y, there's an ambo on the way," he says, his voice clear with panic and shakey, "You're gonna be fine."_

_That's the last thing Jake's able to tell before his eyes shut completely and his vision goes to dark._


	3. part three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys are just amazing! Please keep the opinions and thoughts coming, it really does make my day! 
> 
> Enjoy chapter three!

The woman's voice through the phone is still monotone as she goes through some of the details she had obviously been told very briefly about. However, Amy wasn't able to concentrate on it very well, all she could hear was the bit from before, the information on Jake she had just been told, playing over and over in her head.

_"I'm calling to inform you that there's been an incident..."_

Her heart dropped when she heard the words, she had to clutch on to the phone to make sure it didn't fall onto the wooden floor below her feet as her breath hitched in the back of her throat.

_"Your husband was shot."_

There was a moment where she sat in silence, the noise coming through the speaker just as background noise as she stared into the space of the living room in front of her. The woman was going on about where he was, what had happened when he had been gunned down but Amy can barely remember it. Her mind went blank, everything went blank as she sat on the couch and stared her gaze forward, silently.

The words were repeated through her head as if moving from one side to another, each syllable echoing out into nothing.

_Your husband was shot._

She reaches forward and turns off the TV, muting the sound and filling the apartment with the heavyweight silence, other than the woman's voice still talking emotionlessly in her ear, but the words were just a blur.

Everything just seems to stop as Amy just stares forward, trying to comprehend what she was being told through the voicemail, but nothing registers.

_Your husband was shot._

_Jake was shot._

Just then the voice went dead, all that replaced it was the ringing of static in her ear as the voicemail finished. Her phone stayed up by her ear as single words from the pile of information then began replaying quickly in her head.

_Hospital._

_Two._

_Critical._

_Surgery._

_Unconcious._

All she can do is sit. Her mind wanders off and she can't control anything, her legs won't respond to her when she tries to stand up and everything begins crumbling down on her. Her eyes fill up quickly and her grip suddenly loosens on the phone, it falling and crashing into the couch cushion before bouncing on to the floor. Her hands reach up, catching the sob that escapes her mouth and muffling it only slightly.

The tears don't fall for a few blinks of her eyes, blurring her vision even more before it's all let out, the pressure that built up releasing a second sob that she's unable to muffle.

She places her hands over her face, the cries flying out into her palms as she tries to be as quiet as she can. There's this weight against her chest that doesn't go away, it feels like she can't breathe as she tries to calm herself down - she needed to get to the hospital and she couldn't drive if she couldn't see but every attempt just ends in further tears. It's like everything she tries just reminds her further of what had happened, and it causes wave after wave.

It's only the sound of Mac's subsequent cries coming from the bedroom that snap her out of the mindset. She lifts her head up quickly and stands from the couch. Her balance is off for her first few steps, which she recovers from as she goes through into the bedroom to collect the wailing two-month-old.

She feels a wad of guilt fill in the pit of her stomach, it was her noises that more than likely woke Mac up from his sleep but when she picks the infant up and holds him against her chest, everything seems to lift temporarily. She shushes him, rocking her body from side-to-side as he looks up, his dark, round brown eyes staring up at his mother in wonder before his lips turn upward to her, smiling his father's grin as he notices her face looking back down at him, her eyes meeting his with the same dark brown color.

Her son's small grin makes her smile in return. Both her boys had the goofy, wide smile and she couldn't have been happy to see that when Mac was only a few days old. She knew at the time it was a reflex as he slept, but it was the same nonetheless. When Mac had done a proper smile for the first time a few days beforehand, it was like staring into a mirror between Jake and Mac. The grin was the exact same.

It was when she saw the similarity from her husband in her son that she broke down again. Seeing that same grin staring up at her in just a much smaller form, from a completely different, new person, is what sends her over the edge again.

She keeps hold of Mac against her chest, holding him tighter in her arms, and she crashes down on the side of the mattress. Her chin is placed against the top of his head, into the boy's dark brown hair and she looks away from him. Despite only being two-months-old, the infant knew when his mother was upset, and she didn't want him to start crying again.

The tears fall much faster this time, and she manages to keep her cries to a minimum. The scent of the baby shampoo helps bring her to the present, able to force her to focus on Mac, and what she was going to do with him.

There's a voice in her head telling her to drop Mac off with someone for the night before going to the hospital but it felt wrong to do it with such short notice. Also, everyone she knows as a possibility to take care of the infant would want to be at the hospital too. Karen definitely would, Charles would, Holt would, etc. Instead, she looks down at Mac with her probably very red and puffy eyes and she forces a smile - not that he would know if it was a fake one or a real one though (but maybe that was a good thing).

"We're gonna go for a drive, okay, Mac," Amy says, slowly standing to her feet and hoisting Mac up better on her hip, "A late-night drive."

Without much of a care in the world, but with one subtle confused look on his face for a very brief moment, Mac gets strapped into his car seat before Amy carries him down to the lobby. In there she waits for the uber she called, getting in and watching the somewhat quiet New York streets four days before the holidays as they drive through them.

The drive is long. The hospital is fifteen minutes from her apartment and the first ten minutes of the drive feel like normal, but the final five seem to slow. The seconds-hand on the clock seems to tick slower and slower and slower with every one that goes by. The roads seem to stretch out further and it feels like it takes hours before the uber car finally pulls up in front of the hospital.

She quickly pays the driver and jumps out of the car. Mac had fallen asleep during the drive, so she's careful when lifting the car seat out as not to wake the baby for the second time tonight.

It's just gone ten and the waiting room is quiet too.

Mac's car seat is placed down gently on the blue and yellow plastic tile by the reception desk and it grabs the attention of the woman behind the desk. She looks up to Amy and begins to hand her a form before Amy cuts her off.

"I was called about an incident, a shooting."

There's the monotone, emotionless voice from down the phone again, she's sure about it. "This is Brooklyn in the week leading up to Christmas. I hate to tell you, ma'am, but you have to be more specific." She says, folding her arms over her chest and leaning her elbows against the desk.

Amy's eyes filled with frantic energy. "My husband was shot, Jake Peralta."

Although the receptionist's voice may be monotone, her face certainly isn't. Her face drops as she narrows her eyes, hinting them toward the waiting room. "He's been moved to surgery. We'll let you know when he's out, just take a seat over there." She says before sealing the deal and pointing over to the order of chairs arranged in a circle.

Amy nods, lifting the car seat up off the floor again and making her way into the waiting room. Her jaw drops open subtly to see Charles pacing around the chairs already. She approaches, dropping down the car seat on top of one of the plastic chairs.

"Boyle, what are you doing here?" She asks, her brows furrowing.

Charles looks just as distressed as she did ten minutes before. His eyes were red, puffy, the tip of his nose the exact same. "I called it in, I was in the precinct when the first shots rang out, Jake had just left in a hurry because he knew he was late home. I grabbed my radio and ran out. As I left the precinct I heard two more, I ran around the corner and he was on the floor, bleeding out but I couldn't see the shooter anywhere. He must have got spooked and ran. I called an ambo, they got there quick but he had already passed out. There was so much blood."

Her eyes suddenly widen and she takes a step forward. "You knew there was someone out there but you still let him go on his own, what were you thinking?"

The detective quickly shakes his head, his hands fumbling in a very similar movement. "No, I didn't. I would never, Amy, believe me. He left the precinct minutes before the first shot happened, I was still up in the bullpen packing up my stuff, he left without me. He must have been in the garage or something by the time the gun opened fire the first time. I moved as quickly as I could, but by the time I got down there the second shots rang out. I never would have let him go out there on his own, I swear. I didn't know what was going on downstairs, neither of us did."

Amy nods, stepping forward again and wrapping her arms around Charles and hugging him tightly. She noted how his hands were stained a faded crimson color, it more obvious and clear in the crevises of his nails. Stained with fresh blood, from not more than an hour ago. Stained with Jake's blood.

"Have you heard any news about him?" Amy wonders when the two of them pull apart, sitting on two chairs opposite each other.

Charles's leg bounces as he hesitates with his answer before he shrugs lightly. "Not really. They took him through to this room as soon as he came through the door, I think I heard one of the doctor's say something about stopping the bleeding first, and they rushed him back out and toward the OR doors down the corridor. He's been in there since."

Amy sighs, looking sympathetically to her friend as he begins tearing up again. She lets him speak, rather than interrupting in front of him.

"I just can't get the image out of my head," he says, his voice breaking as he breathes through cries. Amy moves from her seat to the one beside Charles, putting her hand against his shoulder. "I just ran around the corner and there he was, lying on the floor just bleeding out everywhere. I tried to stop it but there was so much. He passed out and I couldn't wake him up again. I thought he was gone."

The sergeant tears up, her vision becoming blurry in a matter of seconds as she hears Charles explain what he had seen in front of him. She rubs one line against her friend's shoulder before her attention is ripped away from Charles's story by a loud crash coming from down the hall.

She exhales a quivered but annoyed breath as Mac begins to stir in his car seat. Standing up to pick the two-month-old out of the seat to stop him from screaming his very powerful lungs out in the middle of the hospital waiting room, Charles stands from his seat also and looks over Amy's shoulder to give Mac a small smile.

"Why did you bring him?" Charles questions, furrowing his eyebrows as he wipes his sleeve against his eyes.

There's a pause as Amy bops Mac up slightly, bringing out the grin in the infant's face as he fully registers his uncle Charles. "There was nowhere to drop him off. Everyone would want to wait here, and I don't want to fight them. Plus, he helped me earlier when I first heard the news, he was there so I could focus on him for a moment, not keep thinking obsessively about Jake and whether he is okay or not."

Charles sighs quietly. "He has to be okay, I told him he would be. I promised him."

Amy was going to speak up, tell him that Jake was, in fact, going to be okay, but by the sounds of what Charles had said, his injuries sounded very bad. She'd rather not risk her words becoming a lie before Jake was even off the operating table.


	4. part four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the short chapter, this is the shortest one in the story though.

It was just after eleven when the next round of people joined Amy and Charles in the waiting room. The sergeant and detective had called everyone else on the squad, had left a message for Karen, and had tried to but were just unable to reach Gina, twenty-minutes beforehand. 

Rosa burst in first, bringing Amy up to her feet and wrapping her arms around her friend tightly, bringing fresh tears to Amy's eyes because _Rosa never hugs anyone._

"I'm so sorry, Amy, I came the moment you called me. How are you, how are you doing?" The detective asks, refusing to lessen her grip against Amy's shoulders.

Amy shrugs slightly, shaking her head a little too. "I'm doing okay, just waiting to hear news on him."

Rosa then pushes her friend away, looking her dead in the eyes. "Jake's gonna be fine, trust me. He's one of the most stubborn people I know, he'll pull through just fine."

With tears still in her eyes, Amy nods, bringing her hand up to wipe away the ones that had fallen down her cheek already. "I hope you're right. I _really_ hope you're right."

Holt arrives shortly after. The captain still looks a little tired, he had just gotten to sleep when they had phoned, but at the same time, he looked more alert than ever. His usual straight, emotionless face is replaced by worry, his eyes keep drifting down to the large OR doors down the long stretch of corridor. He doesn't say much when he arrives, he just gives a saddened look toward Amy before taking a seat in the circle of chairs. 

There's barely a word spoken between the now four members of the nine-nine until nearing midnight. By then, Charles's eyes were starting to drop in his seat as the exhaustion begins to set in, replacing the fear and adrenaline from earlier on that night, Rosa was reading through something on her phone, Holt was walking in circles around the waiting room and Amy was watching Mac sleeping intently. 

As midnight nears, however, Mac wakes up again, letting out angry grunts and screwing his fists up. Amy knows that he's woken up to eat and grabs him from the car seat. He had last eaten at seven just before she had put him down in his bassinet, so it was about now he would be hungry again. As she fed the infant, she was much warier of her surroundings. In the hurry of leaving the apartment, she hadn't grabbed anything that would be useful to cover up, she had only taken a half-empty diaper bag too so that would only be good until first thing in the morning. 

Her gaze keeps moving to look down that corridor, much like everyone else's. According to Charles, Jake had gone through into surgery at almost nine-thirty, which meant he had already been in the OR for two and a half hours. There hadn't been a word through from anyone on Jake's condition, his state, or if he was coming out of surgery soon. 

The wait was killing her, the fear of what the doctor might say about Jake, what damage the bullets might have done, or if he was alive or not, actually hurt. Her leg couldn't stop bouncing no matter what she tried to do to stop it, and her mind kept wandering to what if Jake didn't make it? What would she do then? How would she cope with going back to work full-time in two weeks whilst also taking care of a, then, three-month-old baby?

What if Mac is the only part of Jake she might have left? 

That thought brought a flood of tears back to her eyes. Every time her mind wandered _there_ it brought more tears back with it. She swears she hasn't cried this much since the day Mac was born and she hates it, she hates the fact she doesn't know and she needs to. She has to know, otherwise the uncertainty will drive her crazy. 

So once Mac had finished eating, she raised his head to rest on her shoulder to burp him (without a cloth which can only go so well) and stands from the seat, walking over to the receptionist's desk again with intention. 

Grabbing the woman behind the counter's attention, Amy sighs. "Look, is there any update on my husband? I'm starting to go crazy not knowing anything."

The woman and her monotone voice shake their head. "Sorry, no information has been given to me. The surgeon or one of his residents might be out in a while to talk to you and explain what's going on, but as of right now I am even less informed of the situation as you are."

Just as Amy opens her mouth to speak back to the receptionist, Rosa comes around the corner and pulls her away from the desk, as if knowing that Amy would flip. 

The detective keeps her hands against her friend's shoulders, making sure that Amy's attention was on her rather than the desk. "Santiago, don't. I know you're stressed out, so am I, every rational person would be. It doesn't mean you can lose it though."

The situation that could have happened runs through Amy's mind, making her nod her head and focus back on the present. "Yeah, of course, I know."

A brief pause sits between them as Rosa lets go of Amy and takes a small step back. With a furrow of eyebrows, the silence disappears very soon after it had started. "Why don't you take Mac home, Amy, get some rest yourself. We'll call you if we hear any news, I promise."

Amy shakes her head fast, placing her hand against the back of Mac's head so he doesn't injure himself. "No, I'm not leaving. Not now, not ever, and definitely not when Jake is still on the table." She says, her voice changed in a sudden anger spit but her words remained nothing louder than a whisper. 

The sergeant then takes off again, going back toward the waiting room leaving Rosa stood by the desk alone. 


	5. part five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally some answers in this chapter. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy it!

It was nearly four when they finally got some news regarding Jake.

The waiting room was very quiet, Charles had fallen asleep on one of the chairs just gone midnight and had been out since, Holt had drifted off eventually too in the corner of the room not that long ago, Rosa had been fighting off the drowsy state with several trips to and from the cafeteria to refill on coffee and was occupying herself by watching the silenced TV hanging on the wall - too far up to be good for your neck, but maybe the caffeine overload she had poured into her body the last two hours had numbed off the strain.

Mac was happily looking around the waiting room, playing with one of the toys Amy was tiredly hanging in front of her son's face to keep him bouncy. He had woken up thirty minutes or so ago but hadn't cried, just google-eyed the room around him, looking with wonder to the pastel green wallpaper and the bright tiled floor.

Since having a baby, Amy hadn't managed to stay awake any later than midnight without sleeping a little beforehand, so this was some kind of record. And while the fact her eyes were heavy, the coffee she had been given from Rosa on her first trip at one was beginning to wear off, and sleep was basically calling her name, Amy shook her head every time and managed to pull her eyes back open again.

She couldn't sleep. Not yet. Not until she knew Jake was off of that damned operating table and that one of the biggest risks was over. She knew the ICU wouldn't be a walk in the park, but she also knew that when he was in that room she could be by his side until the sedative wore off, even longer after that.

Because if the worst were to happen in the ICU, she would be there beside him to say goodbye properly. If it were to happen - which she doesn't want in a million years, hopes it would never happen because even the thought of it caused the worst dread and pit of sadness to form in her chest - she would want for it to be like that.

She begins drifting off with her thoughts bombarding her mind, but tug and release of the stuffed giraffe in her hand brings her back, waking her up completely again. She sits up and drops the animal in the car seat at her feet, gaining a smile in return from Mac as he grasps the giraffe in his hand and pulls it away into his lap.

Amy yawns, looking around the room and letting her eyes drift and fall onto the OR doors like they had done every time she had looked around, but also like every other time she had looked, there wasn't anyone there.

However just as she was turning her head back around, someone dressed in scrubs exited the large OR doors and begun walking toward the waiting room.

She tried not to get her hopes up, there had been doctors walking around the place all night and while at first, she practically leaped out of her chair when they walked over before she ended up slumped back in the plastic-coated seat when they spoke to another person from the waiting room or disappeared off completely.

She felt as though she was back at eleven o'clock up until the doctor stepped closer, calling Amy's name, making the sergeant step up quickly whilst nodding her head. Rosa stayed sat down, thinking whether to wake Charles and Holt but choosing to go against it.

There's a look on the doctor's face, a drop in her lips that tightens Amy's chest in all the wrong ways. A weight soon drops down against Amy's shoulders when the doctor doesn't say anything for too long. Mac senses something was wrong and begins stirring in his seat but stops when Rosa sits forward and pulls the infant up and into her arms. A breath hitches in the back of the sergeant's throat when the doctor eventually opens her mouth.

With a sigh, the woman in the blue scrubs finally chose to answer the two cop's very worried expression. The voice that comes out sounded very much like pitty, sending off alarm bells in Amy's head.

"It was a difficult surgery. The abdominal bullet caused a lot of hemorrhaging and internal bleeding as it had damaged the left hepatic artery, it proved a laborious fix but we were able to control the bleed. The bullet that hit his chest just missed his heart, it did a lot more damage to his lung and ribs. He's got three broken ribs and his left lung was punctured by the bullet but other than that the overall injury in his chest was minimal. He was very lucky though, if the bullet had been any higher or any more to the left, it would have pierced through his aorta or even his actual heart and it would have killed him instantly."

 _Only Jake would be that lucky._ Amy thinks to herself, a smile of _so much relief_ plastered on her face.

The doctor speaks up again, bringing Amy back again. "He's just being closed up now, and then he'll be moved to the ICU for recovery. He's got a road ahead of him, but he's a trooper. You should be able to see him soon." She says, giving a small smile toward the two cops in front of her before walking off back through the corridor and into the OR doors again.

Rosa waits for a moment after the doctor's departure before standing from the seat, keeping Mac in her arms to stop him from crying and waking Charles and Holt. He was in her arms, he wasn't crying, he seemed okay now but she wasn't taking any chances by putting him down. She lets Amy turns around to face her on her own before she speaks up, allowing Amy to take the infant from her arms. "You feel better now?"

Amy fusses over the two-month-old for a brief moment before moving her gaze up to meet her friends. She nods slowly, as if saying she was still not completely sure. "A little, but you heard what that doctor said, he's still got a road ahead of him, he's not in the clear yet."

Rosa puts her hand against Amy's shoulders, giving her a sympathetic look. "She also said that Jake's a trooper. He's gonna be fine, and you know it. By the time Mac has learned how to crawl, Jake is gonna be chasing him around the apartment, just you wait and see."

She can't help but smile slightly. She hopes Mac isn't crawling anytime soon, it seemed as though he was growing up way too soon and it only felt like yesterday that both her and Jake were fussing over him in the hospital the day he was born. However she knows it's likely to be soon though, Mac was just learning to push himself over on to his back from his stomach during tummy time - he hadn't done it yet, but she knew it was a very almost finished work-in-progress.

With a nod of her head, she allows the image to fill her mind though. There's a second smile that hits her as she looks down at Mac, who was too occupied by the wallpaper paint again to notice his mother's gaze. That reminds her of Jake, and his incapability to keep his attention on something he wasn't really interested in for more than ten seconds, and she knows it's very much like father, like son between Mac and Jake.

"Yeah, he will." Amy mutters out, keeping her gaze locked on her son when he finally looks to her with his wide brown eyes, Jake's smile creeping through and denting itself into the infant's face as he recognizes the familiar face of his mother.


	6. part six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like some of you might not like this chapter. However it is unskippable… it's quite a big chapter. 
> 
> I'm not a doctor (shh) nor a med student or anything like that. However I watch a lot of chicago med and fire (the paramedic side is the bit I'm referring to) and any medical jargon is learned from that and google.

There was something unsettling about seeing Jake lying in that hospital bed, something that acted as a tear-trigger because the moment she stepped through the door she felt her eyes burn up again.

He just looked so... weird.

Tubes going into his mouth and into the side of his chest, needles poked the top of his hands, wires strapped to him under the gown logging each vital he had, but he didn't seem fazed - if he woke up though right now to see all of this his mind would flip.

It's not the first time she's seen him in one of those hospital gowns, when he got hit by that car in Atlantic City or when she shot him in Florida, but this time was _so much different_. This time he wasn't aware of what was happening, he hadn't woken up yet. The doctors weren't sure when that was going to be as of that moment, they said his body would heal faster if he was asleep, said they'd rather take the chest tube out before they lower his sedation so he isn't aware of what they were doing, said it was easier if he was asleep.

But she wanted him awake, to tell him everything is gonna be alright and that he's okay, tell him that she was so worried about him from the moment she got that voicemail last night, tell him that no matter what happened to him she was going to be there right by his side with him. She wanted him awake so she would know he's okay, because like this - seeing him helpless, vulnerable - broke her heart.

This wasn't the Jake that had left their apartment to get to work less than twenty-four hours ago. That Jake was up, smiling, making jokes at any given moment, watching over Mac as she finally got to go to the bathroom. This Jake didn't have a clue of anything around him, he was completely out of it, and his brain might not have a real idea as to why.

She sat in the chair beside the bed and laced her fingers in his, being careful not to knock the IV line. It was weird to see his left hand without the wedding ring placed firmly on his fourth finger, usually he would avoid or straight-up refuse to take it off, but now all that was there was a small tan-line from where the ring was before.

When the doctor had come back out to the waiting room, telling them that they were able to go through and see him, Rosa had offered to take Mac out of Amy's hands and stay back with Charles and Holt. Amy argued with the detective for a brief moment before deciding that Rosa's intentions were for the best, maybe taking Mac through wouldn't help, so she handed over the infant to her friend and followed the doctor back into Jake's room.

The only noise from the room was the reassuring beep coming from the monitor that the wires glued to his chest plugged in to. There was one just over every second, letting out a small echo into the room that disappears just in time for the next one to ring out.

She sighs and leans back in the chair, pulling it in toward the bed so she doesn't have to stretch as far forward because she doesn't want to let go of his limp hand in hers. Resting her head against the back of the chair, making sure it was placed in such a way that wouldn't cause a strain in her neck, she stifles back another yawn before allowing the tired sensation to pass over her again as she just manages to keep her eyes open. The fighting off of sleep doesn't last long, however, because not moments after, her eyes drop down heavy again and she's out almost instantly.

* * *

Amy isn't sure how long she's asleep for, but she's awoken very swiftly when she swears she feels a squeeze against her hand, which was still somehow intertwined with Jake's. She sits up very quickly, opening her eyes widely and dropping them down to Jake's hand for a short second before lifting them back up to her husband's face, only to find him in the same state he was when she fell asleep.

There's a hunch in her back as she slumps forward with disappointment. Her eyes trail down his face, watching him intently to see if there is any movement but to her dismay her normally very active husband was completely still.

Using her free hand, Amy reaches down and grabs her phone from the floor - it must have fallen out of her pocket when she was asleep. Lighting up the lock screen she audibly groans when she sees how early it was still. It was just gone six, which meant it had only been just over two hours since Jake had been taken out of surgery and into this room.

She tries to go back to sleep, usually this early in the morning or with as little sleep as she had already had she wouldn't have a problem drifting back, but today was so much different. Every time the sergeant manages to get remotely close, there's a noise from outside or she swears she feels another light squeeze coming from her husband against her fingers or there's longer pauses between the regular beeps throughout the room.

This continues for a while, and after twenty minutes she gives up, knowing there isn't much use in it anyway. She knew she was likely get a call from Rosa any minute now saying Mac was awake and crying because he was hungry, so she might as well stay up.

She sits up in the seat again, feeling a familiar tightness in her back she hasn't felt since she was pregnant with Mac and was unable to get comfortable enough to sleep. A small grunt escapes her lips as she stretches out her legs so her feet fit under the bed, but during this she refuses to loosen her grip against her husband's hand, not allowing herself to untangle her fingers from his.

Her attention doesn't lift from Jake's unconscious state, not even when one of the nurses comes in to check on him. Her eyes trail across his motionless jawline, down his neck and shoulders, the mental image burning into her eyelids of just how vulnerable he looked — he never looked like this when he was asleep, they had been married two years and together five and she had come home too many times to count to him fast asleep on the couch whilst watching a movie or basically passed out on top of the mattress after an extremely hard case, and he had never seemed so powerless before.

She sees something fly past in the corner of her eye and she moves her gaze to examine further, only to be met with a small bruise peeking out on Jake's upper arm from under the gown. Her eyebrows furrow as she moves in her seat to take a closer look. It's not a big one, it slides horizontally across his arm to his back, but she can't see it all too well because of the gown's cover-up. She takes it that the bruise had formed from where he had hit the path, the doctor had said he might have taken a bad fall from the impact of the two bullets.

Seeing him like this sends a ping off in her chest, one that hurts with worry, relief and anger simultaneously. Worry because she knows he's still not in the clear just yet, relief because she knows he's alive, and anger because she thought he would be more careful now than ever. She's mad because he ran into the situation without thinking properly, because the doctor said it earlier, he was so lucky to have lived through the shooting and not to have died right there on that cold, dead Brooklyn street.

Because what if he hadn't been so lucky? What if he had died on the impact of the bullet, before Charles called the ambulance, on the way to the hospital, on the table? He was always saying he was gonna be there for Mac, not become his own father, or grandfather, or great-grandfather or like any of the Peralta father's before that, but he ran head-first in to a situation that placed him here in this hospital bed, maybe even clinging on by a thin rope.

Her phone brings her out of her thoughts. Her eyes were filled to the brim again, and her vision remains blurry despite the several blinks to release the pressure building up but to no avail, however she finally gets over the edge and the tears begin running down her cheeks, clearing her vision enough for her to see the alert that had pinged through.

 **_[Rosa Diaz - 06:31am] - You need to calm your child, he's start_ ** **_ed_ ** **_crying and I know it's not his diaper that needs changing._ **

The unenthusiastic tone of taking care of a cranky baby coming from Rosa even through a text is very clear and it makes Amy crack a smile. She puts her phone back into her (Jake's) hoodie pocket and stands from the seat, leaning over and pressing a gentle kiss against her husband's hairline, whispering to him that she'll be back in a moment.

She leaves the room with a double-take over her shoulder to him before allowing the door to shut quietly behind her as she moves back toward the waiting room. When she gets there she finds Rosa holding Mac in her arms, pacing around the waiting room with Charles close behind her, following the detective whilst keeping eye level to Mac and presenting him with the stuffed giraffe in an attempt to calm him.

Amy notices that the second Rosa spots her walking down toward them, Rosa sighs and meets her halfway, handing over the infant without any hesitation. Mac's cries seem to soften when he's placed in his mother's arms but they don't dissipate entirely until he's happily eating. A silence weighs down on the waiting room but it doesn't last too long. Charles breaks it in a whisper, wanting to know an update on his friend.

"He's still asleep, they said they won't lighten his sedation at least for the next few hours and he's got a road ahead of him, but at least he's out of surgery." Amy replies, matching her friend's tone, quickly looking down to Mac in her arms before looking back up to the waiting room and looking around. "Where's Holt?"

Rosa speaks up quickly, cutting in front of Charles just as he opens his mouth. "He went off to get breakfast," she says, "And Terry's on his way now, he had to wait for Sharon to get home because she was working a night and apparently he couldn't leave the kids on their own."

Amy sighs slightly. "What about Karen? Have you heard back from her yet?"

The two detectives shake their heads. "No, not yet. We also tried Roger, but he didn't answer either, we left a message again for them both so hopefully they'll get here when they see it." Rosa says.

Charles cuts her off, much like she had done moments before. "We tried Gina again too, but it went straight to voicemail and she hasn't read the texts we've sent either."

There's a gentle nod to Amy's head. "Okay, as long as it's sent she can't complain at us too much."

Rosa scoffs lightly under her breath. "I wouldn't be too sure about that, she'll complain either way," she says in a mumble before her face drops a little when she looks up to Amy, "How are you doing?"

Amy inhales sharply, keeping her gaze locked on her son to avoid the pitiful looks coming from her friends beside her. She subtly shrugs, making sure not to make any sudden moves that would cause Mac to loose his latch. "It's hard seeing him like that, he just looks so different lying in that bed, but at the same time there's like this relief that's washed over me because I know he's got a chance."

Before anything else can be said, an alarm starts blaring from down the corridor, echoing down the large hallways into the waiting room. It gains all their attention, they're all looking over their shoulders to see exactly what was going on. A bunch of doctors look up from what they're doing too, moving their alert attention in a certain direction before a few of them run toward where the alarm was going from just around the corner as the lights planted on the walls all over the place begin lighting up with a bright blue.

"What is going on?" Charles asks, furrowing his eyebrows deeply as he stands up quickly from his seat in an attempt for a better view.

Amy moves her hips around further, unable to stand up herself as Rosa goes to open her mouth and reply given the fact she knew, but is instead cut off by a voice coming from speakers down the corridor. It's quiet but the three of them are able to hear it enough to make out what it's saying.

 _'Code Blue! ICU Room 3. Code Blue! ICU Room 3.'_ The message replays over and over as more doctors begin running in that direction, keeping Rosa and Charles and Amy's gaze locked that way.

As the message plays for the fourth time, the sudden realization smacks Amy around the back of her head as her heart drops down into the pit of her stomach. What she says falls out from her lips quickly, she doesn't even realize she's said them until she gets the worried looks shot in her direction from Charles and Rosa.

"That's Jake's room."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Told you. :)


	7. part seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want you to know, I love you all! <3

Rosa and Charles widen their eyes, their faces dropping slightly as they turn their heads from the commotion down the hall to Amy sat beside them.

Amy doesn't move from her seat, Mac still lying in her arms, but she watches down the corridor with worry spread across her face. She's unsure if her two friends say anything to her, all she can focus on is the blue flashing lights on the walls and the alert blaring out from feet away.

Her heart begins pounding in her chest, it feels as though it would come out at any moment, and her breathing becomes uneven. Panic begins soaring through her as she watches with uncertainty as new doctors run in the room and old ones walk out.

Suddenly Rosa's hand against her shoulder brings Amy's focus back to normal, her head turning around to face her friend. Rosa's voice is slightly muffled, there are bits she misses, but she makes out most of it.

"Amy, Amy, look at me, okay, just look," Rosa instructs before part of what she says goes through one ear and out the other as the alert plays again, the voice echoing off the inside of Amy's head, "It's gonna be alright, but you've just got to focus on me, nothing else."

The sergeant can hear her heart pounding as she tries her hardest to keep her attention on Rosa leaning over in front of her.

Rosa gives a very fake smile. "Or Mac, focus on Mac for me."

Hearing her son's name does what it was supposed to do, what it _needed to do_ , bringing Amy's full attention down to the infant content in her arms. He seemed completely unfazed by the situation going on around him, he was happily eating and that's all that mattered to him.

In the corner of her eye, Amy can see Rosa nod, what looks like a subtle but genuine smile form on the edges of her lips. "Good, just keep your attention solely on Mac. Just Mac, it's gonna be alright."

She can feel the thumping against her ribs begin to ease, the pain alongside it fading away too, as the intensity of her heart rate appears to go down. It was still pounding, but the sensation of it about to burst out of her chest slowly starts to disappear.

Her focus falls on the strands of dark hair on the top of Mac's head, the way the ends of the hair on the back of the infant's head begin to curl in on one another. She tries to listen to the small noises he's making as he eats, but doing that makes the voice from the alarm ring through her head again. One of his hand is balled up into a fist and rested just on top of his rounded cheek.

There's is the muffled sound of the alarm, the voice, the announcement, just about able to be heard, but she manages to block out most of the volume. She hears Rosa mumble something in front of her, but following her friend's orders, Amy continues to keep her attention locked on her son.

It's only when Mac begins fussing in her arms, telling his mother that he was done, that Amy looks up again to a sudden silence in the waiting room. The lights had stopped flashing, the alarm had gone quiet, and the corridor was no longer bustling to the brim with doctors and nurses.

Rosa was pacing slightly up and down a small row of chairs, Charles sat in one of them with his head in his hands. Rosa looks up when Amy speaks, the male detective giving a subtle gaze up with his eyes before planting them back down on the bright plastic floor.

"What happened? Why's everything stopped?" Amy questions, furrowing her eyebrows as she moves Mac up to her shoulder to burp the infant.

Rosa's emotionless face doesn't come off handy as she pauses. The detective gazes down the hall for a brief moment as if trying not to make eye contact with her friend.

"Rosa! Tell me what happened." Amy says, her voice much sterner than before, the volume increasing too.

The detective drops her eyes down to the floor momentarily before lifting them up to meet the worried stare coming from Amy. She slowly shakes her head. "They're running tests now, he was down for so long they're worried it might have caused damage. They don't know if he's brain dead or not, but the doctor said there's a possibility he is."

Amy can feel a weight drop from ten or more stories up hit her shoulders. She stops patting her hand on Mac's back as she sits, somewhat stunned, staring up at Rosa. For a moment, the waiting room drops down into a silence again, nobody daring to say anything whilst Amy processed the news.

Rather than saying anything, however, Amy stands up slowly and hands Mac off into Rosa's arms, mumbling that she'll be right back before walking away quickly toward the bathroom sign hanging on the wall.

The two-month-old looks up to Rosa before moving his gaze around the waiting room with wide eyes, obviously very confused over what had just happened. Rosa hesitates for a moment, doing the same confused expression as Mac as she watches Amy disappear into the large door down the corridor.

Just as the detective was handing Mac into Charles's arms so she could follow Amy, Terry comes pretty much crashing into the waiting room, clearly out of breath.

Rosa turns around with furrowed eyebrows to see what the noise was about, her brows knitting together further to see the lieutenant fumbling around. "Terry, what the hell took you so long? You said you were on your way like half-an-hour ago."

Terry sighs, throwing his hands up. "I swear I came as quick as I could, but apparently it was too fast for patrol cops so I got pulled over for speeding. Plus I don't live as close to this hospital as you all do," the taller man says, huffing for the air around them, "Why do you have a baby? Did you steal that baby?" He questions.

"Why on earth would I steal a baby? It's Mac, dumbass," Rosa replies, gaining a realization nod from the lieutenant, "Amy gave him to me and ran off into the bathroom."

There's a pause but in the end the larger man chooses not to question it. Instead, he folds his arms over his chest, sighing deeply. "So, what's the word?"

Rosa has to bop Mac back up so his head is rested on her shoulder before she can reply. She shakes her head again, much like she did when she told Amy the news, but this time she shrugs the shoulder that didn't have a baby's head on. "He's out of surgery, then he ran a code blue in the ICU. They managed to get his heart back into a rhythm but he was down for too long, so they have to run a test to make sure he's not brain dead. We have no idea how long until the results come back."

Terry looks over her shoulders for a brief moment before looking back to the detective slowly. "So I take it that's why Amy ran off to the bathroom."

All Rosa does is nod, beginning to walk around the waiting room in the hopes that maybe Mac will fall asleep again in her arms. However after a minute, Terry offers to switch places with her so she can check on Amy. Rosa thanks the lieutenant quietly, already handing off the infant into his arms - Terry had kids and is probably much better with it than she is.

She passes Holt on the way to the bathroom as he makes his way into the waiting room again. The detective gives him a look in the general direction of the waiting room when the captain asks if there was any news on Jake, saying that Terry and Charles would fill him in. The captain nods and continues walking down the corridor, leaving Rosa able to walk into the bathroom to talk with Amy.

When Rosa opens the doors, she finds Amy stood leaning up against the sink, staring down at the floor. She gently knocks on the main door to the bathroom, saying her friend's name somewhat quietly so the sergeant knew she was there.

Amy looks up and takes a sharp inhale, using the sleeve of her (Jake's) hoodie to wipe the streams of tear-marks rolling down her face. "What do you want, Rosa?" The sergeant asks, her voice coming across a little annoyed.

Rosa steps into the room fully, allowing the door to shut slowly behind her as she moves closer to Amy. "It's gonna be okay, Santiago, I promise."

Amy can't help but scoff, being cut off however by Rosa's stern voice.

"No, I know he's going to be fine, so everything is gonna be okay. Jake's a fighter, Amy, you must know that by now. I've known Jake for years, he's one of the strongest people I know, this is all gonna turn out fine."

This time the sergeant looks up from the floor with fresh tears shining in her eyes. "But you said it yourself, the doctors said it themselves. There's a chance he's gone, and this is us, this is the squad, bad things always happen to us. How do you know for certain this isn't just going to add to the list of bad things to happen?"

Rosa takes another step forward and forms a small smile on her lips. "Because this is Jake we're talking about. There is no way he would let himself go out like this, not without saying goodbye at least."

Amy forces a nod before smiling one back to her friend, using the sleeve of the hoodie to catch a couple of tears that escaped. She thinks about asking Rosa something to do with Jake, or how she can really be so sure, but chooses not to. They both stand in silence before Rosa asks whether or not Amy wanted to go back into the waiting room for Jake's results and Amy nods, following her friend out of the bathroom and back into the waiting room again.

The two of them sit down with Charles and Holt, Terry is walking slowly around the room in circles in an attempt - that seemed to be proving unsuccessful - to get Mac back to sleep.

A minute goes by in silence before Holt suddenly stands up from his chair and walks over a few steps to Amy, asking if he could speak to her privately. She nods without hesitation, standing back up from her seat again and guiding the superior officer off to the side, just out of earshot of everyone else.

There's a slight pause before Holt speaks up, explaining exactly why he wanted to speak to her privately. The captain keeps his hands placed directly against his side and his voice is a lot quieter than it usually would be, but Amy can hear it just fine.

"I want to apologize for my previous behavior regarding how I entered the hospital, Santiago, I was still processing the news and wasn't myself. As you are aware, Peralta and I have a specific kind of relationship and when I heard the news... well, I was emotional about it, and because of that I was very distant when I came in. I should have asked you how you are doing with all of this rather than sit by my own," he says, and despite the same robotic voice they heard every day at work, there was something different about the way he let out the words. He clears his throat very quickly and puts his hands against his hips, "How are you doing?"

Amy can only really shrug. "I'm processing the news too." She replies, unable to put a word on the emotion she was feeling because she wasn't completely sure on what emotion she was feeling right now, it all changes so quickly.

Holt nods slightly but the chance to say anything else is cut short when Rosa quickly calls Amy's name before pointing her hand in the direction of the corridor, down the corridor to the ICU.

Amy moves her gaze from the captain quickly and spots a man in scrubs walking down toward them, carrying a board in his hand. He looked focused on the squad, and the sergeant recognizes him as one of the doctors who rushed into the room when the blue lights started flashing throughout the entire floor.

He traveled down the hall swiftly, coming to a sudden stop in the waiting room and he doesn't have to call Jake's name for everyone to be stood at his feet. His face was blank, no indication that they were able to read early on the facts about Jake and his current state. Amy's breath hitched in the back of her throat, refusing to escape until after the doctor had opened his mouth.

"As you are all aware, we were able to get Jake's heart back into a normal sinus rhythm but it did take a few minutes, more than we are usually comfortable with. One of the most common risks we look for after someone's heart stops is the brain going too long without oxygen, so we ran a test to check Jake's brain activity," he explains before pausing, making Amy look quickly over to Rosa as she swears the detective gets ready to punch the doctor, "And he showed no damage, the waves were very strong. He's in the clear for now, and he's got one hell of a story to be told when he wakes up. We'll continue to monitor him, but at the moment he is stable." The man says with a smile, finally, before he turns around and walks off.

Amy suddenly sinks into the seat placed just behind her as her eyes tear up. Everyone looks to her with furrowed eyebrows before Rosa sits beside her friend, placing her hand against the sergeant's shoulders.

"I told you he would be okay, didn't I?" Rosa questions, gaining a smile to grow on Amy's lips as she nods, bringing her sleeve (Jake's sleeve) to wipe her eyes clear of the salty pearls.

The sergeant nods, letting out a breathless laugh too. "Yeah, you did."


	8. part eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I seriously can't thank you guys enough with the amount of support I get from you, it is the highlight of my day. You really are the best, so thank you!

Everything started getting quiet again later that night. It was almost nine when the only people left in the hospital were Rosa, Terry and Amy. Holt and Charles had left that morning for their shifts, Holt stopping by afterwards for an hour or so before heading back home, and Charles had stayed at work late again to try and get the person responsible for all of this into custody. Karen and Roger had showed up at about eight in the morning and stayed long over twelve hours, they had only just left in fact. And despite their numerous attempts to get into contact with Gina, her phone always went straight to voicemail and she wasn't reading their texts.

Hitchcock and Scully had dropped some food off for them all at around lunchtime, claiming that the hospital they chose had a terrible selection of food available, and while it made the squad grimace when the two of them went into too much detail about the matter, it brought a smile on their faces at the older mens generosity.

Amy had gone back through into Jake's room about five minutes after the doctor had come through to tell him that Jake's results were good from the scan first thing in the morning, and Rosa doesn't believe that the sergeant's left the room since. Over the course of the day Rosa had been texting her friend when needed, when Mac began crying because he was hungry or when the food was brought over, but soon after the detective would send those texts, she would always get one back telling her to bring Mac into the room or asking if she could bring a plate for her.

Part of the detective wants to believe that Amy is okay, that she's just being stubborn and refusing to leave or something, but part of her knows there is something wrong - even when Rosa brought the food in for her she barely touched it. She knows Amy needs to go home, be in her own apartment for at least the night, get some sleep in her actual bed, spend some time doing normal people things rather than watch her husband lie unconscious in a bed whilst staring to the monitor displaying his vitals in the corner of her eye.

Rosa's told her that, but she didn't listen. She had told her that multiple times throughout the day, in fact, but the sergeant was refusing to take her advice.

She isn't sure how Amy could deal being in that room all day, the beeping from the monitor beside the bed was enough to drive her crazy after ten minutes, let alone the constant parade of doctors coming in to check up on him and nurses calmly striding out having just changed the IV bag hanging on the post.

The detective is brought back into the reality of everything happening around her when Terry calls her name. She was sat in the waiting room, staring into the empty space on the floor in front of her that was usually filled with Mac's car seat, but Karen and Roger had offered to take him for the night so it was just the bright plastic tiles of the waiting rooms and corridors and hospital rooms, pretty much the decoration everywhere in the hospital.

"Rosa!" Terry's voice breaks her gaze up, her eyes finally lifting from the floor after god knows how long. The lieutenant points to the large doors over his shoulder. "I'm gonna head home, it's getting late. Call me if anything changes with Jake." He instructs, giving the detective a small smile before beginning to walk off.

Rosa jumps up from the seat and stops Terry in his tracks, calling out his name to make him turn back around again. "Before you go, can you talk to Amy? She needs to go home too but she won't listen to me, it's not good for her to stay in there all night, she won't sleep otherwise."

Terry nods without hesitation, going back down the corridor toward the rooms again. He stops outside Jake's, knocks on the door and goes inside, giving Amy a smile as he sits down in one of the other chairs.

Amy barely looks up from her intent gaze on Jake, but she mumbles a quiet greeting anyway. She doesn't even look up when Terry starts talking to her.

He keeps his voice quiet and genuine but straight to the point. "Amy, you should go home and get some sleep, you and I both know hospital chairs aren't the most comfortable to spend a night in."

The lieutenant was right. When Jake had his multiple accident streak while in the line of duty, the whole squad took turns keeping the detective company before he could be discharged from the hospital. Despite that being almost a month before they got together, Amy had taken the most amount of shifts there, popping in to see him at least once every two days.

But she can't leave Jake here, not now.

Amy shakes her head, sighing slightly but refusing to move her gaze up. "I can't, Terry. I need to be here. I need him to know I'm here."

Terry's face drops as he lets his vision fall to Jake lying in the bed too. "I get that, Santiago, but we both know it would be better if you went home to get some rest, it would be much better for you."

"But I need to be here, I can't leave." Amy says.

The lieutenant's brows furrow slightly. "Why can't you leave?"

He sees Amy's eyes begin filling up with tears as her voice cracks subtly in her quiet whisper. "Because the last time I did he ran a code, and if that had been it for him, I wasn't in the room to say goodbye. If I leave and go home and he runs another code and this time he doesn't come out of it, I won't have been able to say goodbye to him before, and he doesn't deserve that, he deserves a goodbye."

He pauses for a moment, unsure on what to say next. Was he supposed to say something reassuring or sympathetic? Or was he supposed to keep arguing with the sergeant to go home and get some rest? The seemingly never ending list of possibilities comes to an abrupt stop as Terry finds himself talking anyway. "Are you scared to leave in case he codes again?" He questions.

Amy's eyes finally lift from the hospital bed in the middle of the room and they meet the lieutenant's sadly. She stares to him blankly for a moment before letting out a small nod. "Yeah." She replies, choosing only to speak the lone, solitary word rather than ramble for minutes about the fear. It was simple, she didn't want to leave in case he coded again and they weren't able to get him back.

Terry nods slowly, walking over to Amy's seat and putting his hand on her shoulder. "You call me the moment you hear something new, okay? I'll be back again in the morning." He says, giving the sergeant a reassuring smile before going over to the door. He stops in the doorway and turns back around to face Amy. "He'll be fine, Santiago, Jake's a fighter, he's not done yet either." Terry says, making the sergeant smile subtly before he leaves her in the room.

He meets back up with Rosa in the waiting room. She jumps up from her seat, crossing her arms over her chest. "So? Is Santiago going home?" She questions, furrowing her eyebrows together neatly.

Terry shakes his head, making Rosa sigh. "She's scared, Diaz, I wasn't going to push her. She doesn't want to go home, and I get that. If anything ever happened to Sharon I wouldn't want to leave her side, Amy doesn't want to leave Jake's. She's going through something, and you can't force her to come out of it. She'll leave when she's ready, not when we make her."

The detective diverts her gaze to the floor, huffing a little before nodding and mumbling a goodbye as the superior announces that he's leaving. She doesn't look back up until Terry is long gone, and when she does she stares down the long corridor to the ICU rooms before taking off down it, stopping in front of Jake's room and looking through the glass door.

Amy had her hand grasped in Jake's and she was unable to take her eyes off either the floor or him, but when Rosa knocks on the door she looks up to the detective and gives a very forced smile.

The detective cuts her friend off before Amy can speak by scraping the chair on the opposite side of the bed across the floor and placing it beside the sergeant. Rosa sits down and leans herself forward. "If you refuse to leave, then I'm not going to leave either. I'm gonna be right here with you, however long that is until Jake wakes up."

The forced smile that crept along Amy's face mere moments before suddenly turns genuine and bright as Amy turns her attention away from Jake to Rosa. "Thank you, I really appreciate it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna go cry now... see you again tomorrow.


	9. part nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was my weekly family quiz night tonight and I completely forgot to put this chapter up before it happened, I am so sorry! 
> 
> Also, if I don't post tomorrow it's because I've melted. It's so hot here in the uk, it got up to like 30C where I am and it's never like that, it's normally like 7C and raining so sun is a strange phenomenon.

Rosa enters the ICU room and immediately stretches out her hand, handing over the second coffee cup to her friend.

Amy gives her as real of a smile as she could force as she graciously takes the paper cup out of Rosa's hand before taking a swig of the hot beverage. It's only after she places the cup down rested in her lap that she speaks up with furrowed eyebrows. "I thought you had work today." Amy says, looking over to Rosa as she sits in the seat beside her.

The detective shrugs, taking a quick sip of her coffee before shaking her head in response. "I called Holt to say I wasn't going to be in. He said it was fine."

A sigh escapes Amy's lips as she takes one quick look to Jake lying in the bed before locking her gaze toward Rosa. "You shouldn't have done that, it's already the third day in a row you've said you're not going in. I'm fine on my own."

"And I told you I'm not leaving your side until your dumbass husband wakes up. If that means I have to take a month off work then I'm doing it," Rosa replies blankly, "Plus I don't have anything interesting going on anyway. I've got no open cases and Charles is close to bringing the shooter into custody."

Amy narrows her eyes. "On what charges?" She asks.

"Attempted murder? Manslaughter?" Rosa guesses, shrugging her shoulders again lightly.

The sergeant can't help a small laugh escape as she looks in the corner of her eye to the monitor beside the hospital bed. "The civilian is doing fine and Jake isn't dead."

"He's coded twice." Rosa blurts out.

Amy unconsciously drops her gaze to the floor, watching the tiles below her feet curiously to avoid looking up to her friend's gaze. "The second time was barely even a code. His rhythm got out of sync, they shocked him once and he was fine."

Rosa brings the coffee cup to her lips and mumbles into the lid. "It was still a code."

Just then they're cut off by a knock against the glass panel in the door. On the opposite side was Jake's doctor, holding the familiar clipboard in his grasp. He's hesitant to enter the room at first, asking the sergeant and detective if he was interrupting something and he quickly joins the two of them in the recovery room when Amy shakes it off, declaring that he wasn't intruding.

Doctor Walters, which they had learned was his name a few hours after Jake had come out of surgery, gives Amy and Rosa a smile, speaking up with a hint of hopefulness seeping out from his voice.

"So, I'll cut straight to the chase," he says, giving a subtle double-take down to the clipboard before placing the piece of hardboard at the foot of the hospital bed, "Later today we're hoping to remove the breathing tube. If his stats stay stabilized we might be able to think about lightening his sedation."

Amy's jaw drops open slightly. She's a little lost for words at first, unable to think of exactly what to say. Her arms cross over her chest as she feels dumbfounded wash over her suddenly. "Are you saying he might wake up?"

Walters nods slowly. "If his tests come back all clear. Try not to get your hopes up to high though, we don't know how he might react to not having the ventilator breathing for him."

The room falls into silence again once doctor Walters leaves. Rosa doesn't say a word and Amy is snapped shut with shock.

It was just yesterday where they were watching doctors pile into the room as the monitor placed upright beside the bed began blaring out loudly, Jake's heart rate becoming more and more uneven and out of rhythm with every beat.

Rosa and Amy watched from the corner of the room after having been pushed over there by one of the doctors. The detective was trying to keep Amy's attention on herself, but every chance she got the sergeant would look over her shoulder and ask something loudly from across the room, questioning exactly what they were doing.

The whole ordeal was a little blurry, much like the first time, however it was over so much quicker. There was a loud yell from someone in the room, making every one of the doctors in the room take a step back before some sort of pulse echoed throughout the room, causing Amy to jump in sync with the noise.

Then Walters stepped closer toward the bed, placing his fingers against Jake's neck and looking behind him to the monitor. _"He's back in sinus rhythm."_ He had said, watching intently to the screen and listening to the beeping that started going throughout the room again in a normal beat, one every second.

And as quickly as all of the hospital members had run into the room, they left in an orderly fashion to continue with what they were doing. Walters stayed for another minute before giving the two women a small smile as he left.

Only after a minute had passed does one of them break the silence that weighed down the room. Amy was still processing the news entirely, staring off into the empty space in the part of the room directly in front of her. Part of her just didn't believe it, however much she wanted to. She hadn't slept nearly enough in the last four days so there was a possibility she had just imagined the whole thing.

Oh how she hopes she didn't, but she's got this obnoxious gut feeling saying that she did.

"Well that's good news." Rosa says, breaking Amy from her own head.

The sergeant has to snap her head back in the direction of her friend to actually take in the words that she had said, otherwise they would be in one ear and out the other. She's still for a moment, taking in what Rosa had said as the fact she didn't just picture it all in her head.

Rosa furrows her eyebrows in her friend's direction when she doesn't say anything and instead just stares out into the space beside her head.

Amy quickly nods, allowing herself to focus on the actual world around her. "Yeah, it is, but you heard what he said. Don't get our hopes up too high."

_(three hours later)_

When Walters finally comes back into the room, it brings both Amy and Rosa to their feet. He gives them a smiled greeting as a nurse follows his footsteps into the room. The two cops don't say anything to each other or the doctors as they begin disabling the ventilator. Amy has to turn her back as they remove the tube, Rosa giving her the all clear to be able to look again once that part of it was over.

Then they waited.

All four of the people watched the monitor as if their life depended on it, watching for a small decrease in Jake's stats. Amy had her fingers crossed so tight she could have been managing to cut off blood circulation to the finger underneath.

The only sound in the room was the monitor, letting out one steady beep just under every second but other than that the room was silent.

Walters and the nurse took note of basically every movement on the screen being held up by a pole beside the hospital bed.

After a pain-staking minute, Amy releases her fingers held tightly together as Walters speaks up, breaking the weighted silence buzzing in her ears.

"His stats are stable, he's managing to breathe well on his own," Walters says, handing over the clipboard he brought in to the nurse to log in to the system outside, "We can move forward with lightening his sedation."

Then the nurse taps Walters shoulder, pointing the pen to the monitor. The doctor's face drops slightly as he watches the oxygenation stat begin to fall.

...100

...95

Every passing second it seems to drop down again.

...90

Amy watches it go further down as she feels her breath hitch in the back of her throat, her heart dropping into the pit of her stomach.

...85

As the number reaches below eighty, an alarm similar to the one that went off during Jake's second code starts going off again inside the room.

Both Walters and the nurse pounce into action, Walters moving behind the head of the bed and lowering it down again, having only been lifted up yesterday. He shouts out to the nurse to grab some kind of kit, the name of which Amy forgets immediately as she continues watching the number on the monitor drop again.

...70

"I need to intubate again." He says, taking out another one of those tubes from a kit - the same type of tube they had just taken out.

Once that's done (Amy doesn't remember turning away this time but she doesn't remember anything about what she had watched, all she can focus on his the alarm ringing out), the numbers start going back up again.

...75

...80

The alarm stops going off, being replaced by the steady beep of Jake's heart rate.

...85

...90

Walters steps away from behind the head of the bed and joins the nurse by standing by her side.

...95

...100

He nods. "He's stable."

Amy feels relief wash over her as the numbers reach the same as they had been before they had taken the first tube out.

She doesn't think about her question before she spits it out quickly. "When can you try it again?" She wonders, crossing her arms over her chest.

There's a pause. Walters looks to Jake lying there over his shoulder before giving a slightly saddened look in Amy's direction. "I'm not sure, I'm sorry."

Then both the nurse and doctor leave the room. Rosa and Amy stand by their chairs, looking in the empty space in front of their eyes before Amy slowly sits down in the chair behind her.

Rosa watches her for a minute before sitting down too. "Are you okay?"

Amy nods, looking to the detective and sniffing back the tears building up in her eyes. "Yeah, I'm fine. I guess I just got my hopes up." She replies, her voice breaking.

The detective leans forward, wrapping her arm around her friend and bringing her into a sideways hug. Amy sinks into it, knowing that any sort of affection from Rosa was very rare.

With a sharp breath, Amy brings her sleeve up and wipes her eyes before any salty pearls are able to escape. "Thank you," the sergeant whispers, smiling into the hug a little more, "For being here."

She can feel Rosa nod above her head. "Of course. I'll be here as long as you need me."


	10. part ten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final two chapters now. I promise the conclusion is getting here!

_He thought she couldn't hear him. He thought she was asleep. She had been, for a while anyway, but she had been woken up a few minutes ago when Mac started crying in the plastic crib beside the bed._

_Before she could show signs that she was awake, the screams from the infant had subsided into frustrated grunts before disappearing completely as Jake pounced up off the hospital couch-bed and grabbed his son into his arms._

_"Hey, shh, don't wake mama," he says, calming Mac down, "You just want some attention, huh? Well I'm sorry but your stuck with daddy attention for a while, mama's had a long day and she needs to rest."_

_A long day was an understatement._

_Going into labor during a borough-wide blackout wasn't exactly the plan and neither was having the baby in the side room off the interrogation room, but as Rosa had joked like an hour (maybe more, she doesn't know how long she's been asleep for, but it doesn't feel like enough time however long it was)_ _ago,_ _Mac was Jake's kid, obviously he would have wanted a dramatic entrance._

_"Today's been crazy. It's your birthday though, we'll be telling this story every year on your birthday I hope you're alright with that," he says and Amy can practically hear the smile growing on his face, "I wouldn't change it for the world. Well, maybe I would change getting back to the precinct when I did, get there earlier, but I made it in time and I'm so glad I did, you owe your uncle Charles for_ _that_ _,_ _not me. Uncle Charles, not Chi-Chi, never let him convince you to call him Chi-Chi."_

_There's a small grunt that comes from Mac in return._

_Jake's quiet for a moment. She's not sure why but if she opens her eyes he'll stop talking. However before she can put too much thought into it, he opens his mouth again._

_"I'm never gonna cut it that close again, I promise. I will always be at least an hour early for every soccer game or tap dancing performance or chess competition or whatever else, maybe even two hours if I'm allowed. I never would have forgiven myself if I had missed your birth and I don't think I'll forgive myself if I miss anything like that in the future," he says and Amy can hear the shuffle of him leaning forward and placing a kiss against Mac's forehead, "You and mama come first, work and other things come second. Always."_

That conversation replays over and over in her head as she watches large amounts of doctors flood into the ICU room as another code blue rings out through the hallway. She had been sent outside to make room for what the doctors needed to do.

She watched the doctors' mouths open and close, but yet no audio of what they were saying hits her ears. All she can hear is the blaring code blue alarm and Jake's voice from two-months back.

_"You and mama come first, work and other things come second. Always."_

If Mac came first, why didn't Jake reach out to grab the infant when he had basically lunged out for him?

If she came first, why hasn't he listened to her the countless times she's asked him to wake up?

She blinks once and one of the doctors is opening the doors to the room as wide as they can while a few of the other ones in the room we're lifting up the sides of the bed and throwing down the IV bags next to his limp arms.

She blinks a second time and they're moving him out of the door in a rush, making sure not to leave anything behind them.

She blinks a third time and he's gone. In the corner of her eye she can see them pushing the bed down the corridor and around the corner out of sight.

And now she's staring through wide open ICU doors into a completely empty room.

A completely empty room that no more than ten minutes ago was pretty much full.

The squad had stopped by during their lunch break, bringing food for them again. They stayed for half an hour or so before they left, Rosa walking out with them because she wanted to go to the cafeteria to get another coffee.

Everything was fine for a few minutes. She sat, talking quietly to Jake to see if maybe, just maybe, he would react to something she was saying. And in a matter of mere seconds, everything changed.

The room was quiet until it wasn't. The alarm rang out, making her jump out of her seat. Doctors piled into the room and ushered her out. She watched from the hallway as they lifted his gown to reveal a pool of blood coming from his stomach and that's when everything stopped. That's when everything went silent.

Other than the conversation that began playing in her head over and over, Jake's voice echoing loudly throughout her head until it hurt. Jake's words imprinted into her eardrums, refusing to allow any more words to pass through.

It was like the voice speaking to her was muffled, blurred, unclear. It was quiet. She wouldn't have even noticed that someone was talking to her if she hadn't seen the white coat in the corner of her eye.

"Amy? Amy? Did you hear me?" They said, eyebrows knitted close together as they stuff their hands in their pockets.

Amy doesn't turn her head, only moves her eyes. She doesn't speak, instead choosing to hum under her breath. "Hm?"

"We've had to take Jake back to surgery. He had a re-bleed in his liver, so much so it had broken through his stitches. It happens sometimes following liver surgery because there is so much blood that goes there. His blood pressure had bottomed out, that's what caused the code."

Amy turns her eyes away from the doctor and stares back into the empty room. "How long will the repair take?" She questions, her voice blank.

The doctor sighs quietly during an exhale. "An hour, maybe two. I'll let you know when he's being transferred back to the ICU."

She just nods, keeping her attention intently on the room in front of her as the doctor leaves.

It's only another minute following that before Rosa comes back, worry clear in her usually slightly monotone voice as to why she was sat outside the room. The detective takes one look in the wide open door and her face drops.

"Amy, what happened? Where's Jake?"

The sergeant's voice is the most monotone it's been, a complete switch between the two cops. "They had to take him back into surgery, something about a re-bleed."

Rosa shakes her head slowly. "I don't get it, he was fine when I left."

"I know," Amy mumbles, fixating her gaze on the floor where the bed had been not minutes ago, "And now it's not."

"Don't say that, Jake's gonna be fine." Rosa says.

Amy turns her head toward her friend and gives her a glare. "You keep saying that but I'm starting to believe it less and less. If he was gonna be fine he wouldn't have coded the first time, his heart wouldn't have gotten out of rhythm, he wouldn't have almost gone into respiratory arrest, his blood pressure wouldn't have tanked and he wouldn't have coded the second time and be in surgery for the second time in a week."

Rosa sighs. "Amy-"

The sergeant cuts her off. "No," she says sternly, "Just you know what, you know how you said you were gonna be here for me as long as I needed?" She asks.

She nods in response, unable to say much before Amy cuts her off again.

"Well I don't need you here anymore. I don't need you breathing down my neck every second of the day. I'm fine. Just go home, Rosa."

"Santiago-"

Amy shakes her head, glaring to her friend further. "No. I'm fine. Just go home. I'll call you if there's any changes with Jake."

Rather than choosing to fight against Amy, Rosa sighs and turns around on her heels and walks back down the corridor, disappearing out of the big doors at the end.

A pain-staking hour and a half of waiting later, Jake was finally wheeled back into the ICU room. It didn't seem like they had done anything to him, he still looked exactly the same.

Keeping to her word, she called Rosa when he was back out of surgery. The detective had replied that she was on her way and that she would be there in a minute, explaining how she had never left the hospital.

When Rosa enters the room, she looks to the bed and sighs quietly. "Nothing changed in here." She says, her voice back to what it used to be.

Amy nods slowly before loosening her grip from Jake's hand and standing up, walking over to the detective. "I'm sorry for how I acted earlier, I was in a completely different head space. I should never have snapped at you."

Rosa gives a small hint of a smile as she shrugs it off. "Don't panic about it, I understand. And you were right anyway, I need to back off a little. I have been a little overboard the last couple of days because I've been worried about you. You're my friend and you've had to deal with a lot, but I'm gonna give you some space, for you to process everything, if you want me to of course."

The sergeant can't help but crack a smile back. "I've processed it. I'm doing fine."

"Okay, well I can leave anytime you want me to, just say the words." Rosa replies.


	11. part eleven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The finale. I really hope you enjoy this chapter, and thank you so much for the amazing support you guys have given me this past week and a bit, it really has been the best and lifted my spirits during this difficult time. <3

Amy was talking to Jake.

He obviously wasn't talking back, but she still held out hope to get a reaction from him.

She had read somewhere that talking to someone in his sort of state might help him wake up sooner than letting him wake up on his own.

It had been three more days since the last code he ran, since his second surgery and it seemed like he was doing better. They had even taken out his breathing tube yesterday and it hadn't caused him to go into respiratory arrest. He still had a nasal cannula on because his stats had dropped slightly when they took the tube out again, but it didn't go down so much they had to intubate again.

She still had her fingers crossed that he was past the stage of having a breathing tube in for good this time. She hated seeing him like that, but don't get her wrong she hates seeing him how he is right now too, however when he had the breathing tube in he looked so vulnerable and it broke her heart. Now it kinda just looks like when he got hit by that car in AC.

The doctor said the next step for him was to wake up, but he didn't say when that would be. He always gave a date when things were gonna happen, he did when they agreed to try and take his breathing tube out again, but this time was on Jake and when he chose to wake up which, as Amy had said, could take a while.

So that's why she's sat intently by the side of his bed. She's hardly moved in three days, she only does to go to the bathroom every few hours because she wants to be in there when he wakes up. She doesn't want him to wake up on his own, not after everything else he's been through.

But yet she doesn't know when that will be.

Karen and Roger had dropped off Mac for the day yesterday, staying in the room during the duration as well. They had been keeping him on a router with Terry for the past week because it wasn't fair to keep him in the hospital for god knows how much longer.

Though Amy wasn't sure how much she could have missed one baby but apparently it was a lot. Apparently it was a hell of a lot.

It seems as though Mac had been missing her too. He had broken out in one of the biggest smiles the two-month-old had ever shone the moment he was close enough to register her face.

What broke her heart even more though was that Mac had reached that point where he knew their faces, and there had been several times where he had clocked Jake's face and tried to lunge out to be in his father's arms. There had even been a frustrated tantrum from the infant when Amy had to keep pulling him away so he wouldn't knock anything. 

Holt and Kevin had stopped by and had dropped off a card and flowers, as well as a stuffed get well soon bear for Jake or Mac depending on who got to it first (Mac did because, well, Jake hadn't woken up yet).

Charles had offered to make something for Amy to eat in the hospital but the moment he started talking about erotic animal parts, she shot him down, saying that it wasn't necessary.

And after a long few days trying to reach Gina she finally picked up her phone. As it turns out Iggy had been playing around on it and had put it down the toilet and it took days just to get a new one because apparently the place had been packed leading up to the holidays. She had come over the moment she got the call, apologizing for not threatening the clerk at the store even more than she had. It was actually a struggle for the doctors to get Gina to leave in the first place.

The only way that was possible was the promise that Amy would text Gina the moment Jake woke up, and she intends to keep that promise. Amy's got her phone sat right beside her in case it happens.

There was still the steady beeping coming from the monitor beside the bed. At first Amy thought it would become obnoxious but as it turns out it was kinda relaxing. At least that way she knew he was alright. As long as the beeping was steady and continuous and there weren't any alarms coming from this room, everything was alright.

Jake's hands were cold. They had been outside of the blanket the entire time and if she put them under the blanket it would mean she wouldn't be able to keep a grasp on them or see them because what it they moved?

She hadn't let go of his hand in days, she couldn't find it in herself to do it. Whether he was in some sort of coma or not, she needed him to know that she wasn't leaving his side.

It had been a week. A week since he had left the apartment with a large smile on his face as he said goodbye to herself and Mac. A week since she got the worst voicemail of her life. A week since she had seen Jake in anything other than a hospital gown and bed, with wires and tubes attached to poles and monitors and ventilators.

A week already.

Part of her thinks it's gone a little quickly, sitting in the same hospital room with her heart in her throat half of the time, but then the other part thinks it's been the longest week of her life.

Amy was still talking, rambling on about the interaction that had happened between Mac and him the day before. If anything she was just hoping that the more she spoke the more likely it was that that research was true - that he would wake up sooner.

"If you were awake you wouldn't have shut up about the fact Mac was crying for your attention." She says, a small smile creeping along her face as she knows that is exactly what Jake would do.

"He misses you, he might not be able to say that he does but I can tell," she adds quietly, giving Jake's hand a quick squeeze, "But at least I can say I miss you."

It's silent for a brief moment, Amy dropping her gaze to her lap before she whips her head up again when she feels something.

It was stronger than just a reflex, something she had come to know how it felt very well. She swears it wasn't a reflex. She hopes to god it wasn't just a reflex.

Then it happens again, this time a little bit stronger than the first time.

This wasn't a reflex, it can't be.

Jake had to actually be squeezing her hand back. He just had to be.

But yet she doubted herself. She had gotten her hopes up before only to have them crash down on her again so tight she could barely breathe. She doesn't want to have that feeling again.

So she doesn't let herself get her hopes up again. He doesn't move again though, he doesn't squeeze her hand or twitch his fingers. He's just still. So she sighs to herself and blames those damned reflexes.

That is until his head starts moving too.

It scares her at first, but quickly she starts talking to him again, squeezing his hand and hoping to get a reaction and sure enough, she did. She watches with anticipation as he slowly begins waking up, opening his eyes only to shut them mere milliseconds afterwards.

"Why is it so bright in here?" He asks, his voice hoarse and dry.

A grin grows wide on her face as she's finally able to hear her husband's voice again, despite it being a little different to what it had been. "Because it's twelve-thirty in the afternoon."

Jake's eyes, while only half-open, seem to widen slightly. "It was nine at night."

Amy shrugs lightly. "Well you've basically been in a coma-like state for the past week."

"Wait. What?" Jake questions, shock filling his voice and replacing the dryness from before.

Amy's face drops a little, her eyebrows furrowing closer together. "You got shot, Jake, do you not remember?"

He nods slowly. "Yeah, I remember," he says quietly. "I'm sorry, by the way."

There's a pause. Amy can't help the smile creep along her face as she just looks to him. Part of her doesn't believe that he's actually awake. "For what?" She wonders, giving his hand another squeeze.

He gives her a weak smile. "I didn't get home at six."

Amy quickly shakes her head. "I don't care, you're okay, that's all that matters."

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are my love right now, I will be forever grateful to hear your opinion on this story. Until the next chapter, bibi! <333


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